Eagle in the Snow is a historical fiction

Historical fiction

Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional...

 novel. Written in 1970 by Wallace Breem

Wallace Breem

Wallace Breem was a British librarian and author. He was the Librarian and Keeper of Manuscripts of the Inner Temple Law Library, and wrote historical novels, including Eagle in the Snow ....

, the novel is set in Britannia

Britannia

Britannia is an ancient term for Great Britain, and also a female personification of the island. The name is Latin, and derives from the Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai, which originally designated a collection of islands with individual names, including Albion or Great Britain. However, by the...

 and Germania

Germania

Germania was the Greek and Roman geographical term for the geographical regions inhabited by mainly by peoples considered to be Germani. It was most often used to refer especially to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube...

 in the late 4th and early 5th century, and centres on the Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 general Paulinus

Paulinus

Paulinus/Paullinus is a Roman cognomen that can refer to:*Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, general who defeated BoudicaRoman consuls*Marcus Iunius Caesonius Nicomachus Anicius Faustus Paulinus, consul in 298...

  Gaius Maximus, a Mithraic

Mithraism

The Mithraic Mysteries were a mystery religion practised in the Roman Empire from about the 1st to 4th centuries AD. The name of the Persian god Mithra, adapted into Greek as Mithras, was linked to a new and distinctive imagery...

 in an age of Christianization

Christianization

The historical phenomenon of Christianization is the conversion of individuals to Christianity or the conversion of entire peoples at once...

. Maximus and his friend Quintus command the defence of Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...

, but when news comes of an impending Germanic invasion across the Rhine, Maximus is promoted to 'General of the West' and reassigned to Moguntiacum, where he and his one legion are tasked with defending the entire border between Germania and Gaul

Gaul

Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...

.

As he is carrying out his duties, more and more of his allies—including those who were once his enemies—try to persuade Maximus to seize the Western Emperorship for himself. Maximus finds himself fighting for an empire rapidly converting to Christianity where his traditional pagan

Paganism

Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....

beliefs are only reluctantly tolerated.